Gaza Unsilenced

… joins the narrative of Palestine’s witness—of oppression, brutality, and death, but also of life reaffirmed and resistance reclaimed.Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

Gaza Unsilenced

During and after Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, voices within and outside Gaza bore powerful witness to the Israeli attacks—and to the effects of the crushing siege that continued to strangle Gaza’s people long thereafter.

… an outstanding collection of short essays…John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago

REFAAT ALAREER and LAILA EL-HADDAD are distinguished Palestinian writers and analysts from Gaza. In Gaza Unsilenced they present reflections, analysis, and images—their own, and those of many other contributors—that record the pain and resilience of Gaza’s Palestinians and the solidarity they have received from Palestinians and others around the world. Other contributors include:

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an independent journalist based in Cairo. He is a Democracy Now! correspondent and a fellow at The Nation Institute.

Ali Abunimah, a cofounder of The Electronic Intifada, is the author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine (2014) and One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (2007).

Shahd Abusalama, 23, is a Palestinian artist, a blogger from Gaza, currently working on her MA in Media and the Middle East at University of London, SOAS.

Mahmoud Alarawi is an artist and a graphic designer who is interested in oil painting, sculpture, and three-dimensional graphic design.

Refaat Alareer is the editor of Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine.

Sarah Algherbawi is a writer who worked with the International Solidarity Movement.

Sarah Ali is a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who is currently working on a master’s degree in English Literature at Durham University (UK).

Rami Almeghari, editor-in-chief of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service and part time lecturer on the media at Islamic University of Gaza, is a contributor to The Electronic Intifada.

Lina H. Al-Sharif writes poetry and is currently working on a master’s degree in creative writing at Lancaster University.

Tom Anderson is a boycott, divestment and sanctions activist and researcher. He has volunteered with various solidarity groups in Palestine and is the coauthor of Targeting Israeli Apartheid: A Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Handbook, published by Corporate Watch.

Rina Andolini is a UK citizen who has been living and working in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza since 2014.

Mohammed Asad is a photojournalist who lives in Shuja‘iya. His photograph “Unbreakable,” of a Gaza girl whose face was badly scarred by Israel’s 2014 bombing, won the Grand Jury prize in the photography competition organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Middle East and North Africa.

Zeina Azzam, a writer and educator, is the executive director of The Jerusalem Fund/Palestine Center in Washington, DC.

Hana Baalousha, a Palestinian from Gaza, has a degree in English language from the Islamic University of Gaza, taught Arabic as a foreign language in the UK, and recently relocated in the United States. She is currently a stay-at-home mom of two little girls.

Farah Baker is a high school student in Gaza.

Ramzy Baroud, a PhD scholar in People’s History at the University of Exeter, is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye, the founder of PalestineChronicle.com, and the author of My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press).

Ayah Bashir, an Al-Shabaka policy member, holds a Master’s degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is a member of the steering committee of PACBI (The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel), the Gaza-based organizing committee for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and One Democratic State Group.

Hatem Bazian, PhD, is a senior lecturer and cofounder of al-Zaytuna College.

Diana Buttu, a Canadian-Palestinian human rights lawyer and analyst based in Palestine, is a frequent commentator on Palestinian affairs and has appeared on major international news outlets including BBC, Al Jazeera, and CNN, among others. She was a legal adviser to Palestinian negotiators in 2000–2005.

Jonathan Cook, winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism, is the author of many books, including Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books).

Therezia Cooper is a boycott, divestment and sanctions activist and researcher. She has volunteered with various solidarity groups in Palestine and is the coauthor of Targeting Israeli Apartheid: A Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Handbook, published by Corporate Watch.

Mariam Elba is a writer on social justice in the United States and the Middle East, particularly Egypt.

Nour ElBorno did not find poetry; poetry found her when she was a child, and ever since she could not be anywhere without inspiration in her heart and a pen in her hand.

Laila El-Haddad was Al Jazeera English’s online correspondent in Gaza from 2003 to 2006. Originally from Gaza, she now lives in Maryland, where she works as a writer, media activist and public speaker.

Sharif S. Elmusa is a scholar and poet who taught for many years at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and is the author of several publications, including Flawed Landscapes: Poems, 1987-2008.

Richard Falk is an Albert G. Milbank professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a research fellow at the Orfalea Center of Global and International Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

Lynda Franken (the pseudonym of Linda de Veen) is a Dutch national and former journalist at The Palestine Monitor who is a project coordinator at EIRENE NL.

Ron Gerlitz is the co-executive director of Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality.

Nathalie Handal is a Palestinian writer. Her latest collection, The Invisible Star, is the first contemporary collection of poetry that explores the city of Bethlehem and the lives of its exiles in such broad geographic spaces.

Chris Hedges is the author of 12 books, including Death of the Liberal Class and War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.

Yousef Al-Helou, a Palestinian journalist in London, is a Reuters fellow at Oxford University.

Ruairi Henchy is an Irish writer and journalist with a special interest in Palestine.

Trevor Hogan is an Irish solidarity activist.

Kim Jensen is a Baltimore-based writer, educator, and activist whose books include The Woman I Left Behind, Bread Alone, and The Only Thing that Matters.

Hatim Kanaaneh, MD, MPH, a retired public health physician who practiced in Arrabeh, is the author of Chief Complaint: A Country Doctor’s Tales of Life in Galilee (2015) and A Doctor in Galilee (2008).

Rania Khalek is an independent journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized.

Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and the editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, and was an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at the Madrid-Washington Palestinian-Israeli negotiations of 1991-93. His most recent book is Brokers of Deceit.

Sami Kishawi, a Palestinian-American currently studying biology and human rights as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, heads the University of Chicago’s Students for Justice in Palestine and serves on the executive committee of American Muslims for Palestine – Chicago chapter. His blog, Sixteen Minutes to Palestine, reports about everyday living in the occupied territories.

Joseph Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history. He is author of the forthcoming book Islam in Liberalism (University of Chicago Press).

Eman Mohammed is a photojournalist documenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Maureen Clare Murphy, a solidarity activist based in Chicago, is the managing editor ofThe Electronic Intifada and has covered cultural production for the site since 2003.

Ahmad Nafi is a contributor to Middle East Monitor and is currently working on a masters degree in Middle East Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. His research interests include Islamic thought and political society in the Middle East.

Mouin Rabbani is a Senior Fellow with the Institute for Palestine Studies and co-editor of Jadaliyya.

Esther Rappaport is a clinical psychologist practicing independently in Tel Aviv. She is an anti-occupation activist with the Coalition of Women for Peace and a member of its board, as well as an activist with Psychoactive – Mental Health Professionals for Human Rights.

Ned Rosch is an activist and yoga instructor who lives in Portland, Oregon.

Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian writer originally from Gaza.

Omar J. Sakr is an Arab Australian poet whose work has been published in many literary journals, including Meanjin, Overland, Cordite Poetry, and Carve Magazine.

Steven Salaita is a scholar, activist, and author of several books.

Rose Schiano is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement

Michael Schwartz is a Distinguished Teaching Professor, Emeritus, of sociology at Stony Brook State University, and the author of many books and articles on popular protest and insurgency, corporate dynamics, and political policy, including War Without End: The Iraq War in Context. His blog, Sixteen Minutes to Palestine, reports about everyday living in the occupied territories.

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian is the Director of the Gender Studies Program at Mada al-Carmel and is a professor at the Faculty of Law, Institute of Criminology and the School of Social Work and Public Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Alaa Shamaly is a photographer and photojournalist who lives in Gaza.

Bushra Shanan is a Hebron-based graphic designer.

Charlotte Silver, an independent journalist in the San Francisco Bay area, was previously based in the West Bank.

Beth Staton is a journalist whose work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Palestine Monitor, Salon.com, Newsweek, and Middle East Eye.

Patrick O. Strickland, an independent journalist who focuses on human rights and social justice issues, is a regular contributor to Al Jazeera English, AlterNet, and The Electronic Intifada.

Mohammed Sulaiman is a Palestinian from Gaza, currently working on his PhD in Australia. He has a master’s degree in Human Rights from the London School of Economics. Mohammed’s work has appeared on the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English,openDemocracy, the Electronic Intifada, and other publications. Mohammed also worked for Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is an Arab American poet of Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian heritage.

Ezz Zanoon is a freelance photographer based in the Gaza Strip. His work has appeared in many publications and outlets, including The Guardian, APA, Time, BuzzFeed, El Mundo, and Reuters.

The editors of this remarkable collection ask, “after the smoke clears, who will remember the dead?” Their answer, and that of their dozens of writers, poets, journalists and analysts, is “we will.” We, they said, Palestinians of Gaza who survived the slaughter, we Palestinians from elsewhere in Palestine and refugees in far-flung exile, we allies and friends from around the world, we will not let the world forget. During the 50 days of Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, Tel Aviv’s best efforts to keep the world in the dark and to keep the West believing the lie of self-defense, all failed. They failed because Palestinians did not all die, and those who lived were determined to tell their story in their own voices: their poetry, their memories, and their children. This extraordinary book joins the narrative of Palestine’s witness—of oppression, brutality, and death, but also of life reaffirmed and resistance reclaimed.
–Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

Readers will find this rich anthology highly informative, evocative, and inspirational. They will find in it culture, creativity, and commitment. And they will also find it painful, emotional, and overpowering, such is the unremitting cruelty with which Palestinians are treated. But read it they must. It equips us all, even the best-informed, with the facts, figures and human stories of steadfastness not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank and amongst the Palestinian citizens of Israel. It enables us to communicate, even more powerfully, why justice is needed, and needed now –and why Israel must be brought to justice. If any book is a must read by the Prosecutor and judges at the International Criminal Court, this book is it.
–Nadia Hijab, Executive Director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network

Gaza Unsilenced is an outstanding collection of short essays that discuss different aspects of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014. Given the ability of Israel and its American defenders to propagandize and distort the historical record, it is imperative that books like this be published and widely read. Israel cannot be allowed to create a false history about the horrors it has inflicted on the people of Gaza and the Palestinians more generally.
–John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

Israel takes the hammer to Gaza, but it cannot snuff out Palestinian voices. These continue to testify to the inhumanity of the Israeli occupation. There are also silences—the book ends with a list of the names of those killed in Israel’s 2014 bombing of Gaza, human beings who cannot tell us their stories. This book tries to fill that gap.
–Vijay Prashad, author of The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution